Nipple Ring as National Security Threat

March 28, 2008

Via MSNBC: “A Texas woman who said she was forced to remove a nipple ring with pliers in order to board an airplane called Thursday for an apology by federal security agents and a civil rights investigation.”

The woman gave a priceless quote: “The last time that I checked a nipple was not a dangerous weapon.”

PS: Something I learned today – sometimes the Google Street View team comes by taking photos while you’re filthy and bent over in your front yard installing that new flower bed, and you don’t notice them. Ahem.

On another planet this story would be merely laughable, quite possibly Onion-quality satire. Unfortunately, on our planet the futile, never-ending quest for perfect security will continue to produce this sort of grotesquery, in which airport security personnel cannot use common sense to override SOPs that defy logic and disregard the dignity of the individual. Investing governments with police power, so as to protect community safety, is a necessary thing and need not be undemocratic, mindless, or brutal. But because police powers will always be wielded by fallible human beings, governments must always have mechanisms of checks and balances as well, to prevent abuses whenever possible and to provide for redress when the inevitable abuses (such as this one) actually occur. This is one reason why governments in ostensibly free societies should always actively promote, never restrict, free and open public access to information, via free and open public libraries for example.